This week is #MAGAWeek2020, my celebration of the men, women, and ideas that MADE AMERICA GREAT!  Running through this Friday, 10 July 2020, this year’s #MAGAWeek2020 posts will be SubscribeStar exclusives.  If you want to read the full posts, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for as little as $1 a month.  You’ll also get access to exclusive content every Saturday.

Americans have come to expect action-packed, robust presidents, those like Theodore Roosevelt, who enjoyed two parts in #MAGAWeek2020 (here and here).  We want our presidents to be like Harrison Ford in Air Force One:  ready to take down the terrorists, saving his family and his country, single-handedly.

Part of that is a symptom of the aggrandizement of federal and executive power at the expense of States’ rights and legislative authority.  Indeed, Theodore Roosevelt is to blame, in part, for that centralization, though certainly not alone (his cousin Franklin did far more damage in that regard).  He’s also responsible—again, in part—for our vision of the president as a man of action.

So today’s #MAGAWeek2020 feature provides a counterpoint to the charismatic, blustering force of TR.  He is a president who, to paraphrase historian Amity Shlaes, resisted the calls to “do something,” and instead did “nothing.”  He is largely forgotten today, although his connection to tax cuts brought him back to popular attention in 2017.

Today, #MAGAWeek2020 celebrates the life and presidency of a man of few words, but of great significance:  Calvin Coolidge.

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